Ethereum: Cannot use master password on Ethereum wallet

Question

Ethereum. I love the ideas behind it and it's exciting and such... but damn if this isn't the most user unfriendly thing I've ever seen?!

So a while ago, with a view to begin mining ETH on my GPU, I installed Alethzero onto my Windows machine.

Why? Who the hell knows... I waded through a billion overly technical FAQs and got very confused over the twenty-something different versions of what appear to be the same software in different guises, and just went with what eventually worked.

So, when running Alethzero for the first time I was asked to create a master password. I did this, and am still able to access the software with the same password.

I did eventually get mining and all is well...

However, I'd really like some user friendly wallet software that I can actually understand, not dissimilar to the Bitcoin Core client. Today I came across the (official?) Ethereum wallet Ðapp.

It looks beautiful... I installed, synched and there we are. Accounts, wallets (not certain of the distinction here, but sure, wallets are like... apps, that are a facade for your accounts? Or something?), all with a nice GUI.

Now, as far as I can tell, the wallet is using the same software behind the scenes as Alethzero... right? If I look in the roaming folder I can see that it's created a file in the keystore folder, alongside one I assume was created by Alethzero.

My issue is this: I can't send any transactions from the wallet Ðapp, as the password is not accepted.

Now, I never created a password for the wallet Ðapp... indeed the only time I've created a password, was the master password I used in Alethzero. This is not accepeted in the Ðapp, but still works in Alethzero.

I assumed they were using the same data... presumably if I create an account in Alethzero, I will see it in the Ðapp? Is that right? So, why am I unable to do anything in the Ðapp without a password that is either not being accepted, or has never been created?

Answer 1

I never managed to solve this particular problem, however I'm now using Mist to great effect.

I found that it was possible to move keystore files from one installation to the new Mist installation and use the passwords I originally created with minimal fuss.

So, my suggestion to anyone having similar problems is:

• Backup the keystores: %appdata%\Ethereum\Keystore
• Uninstall Alethzero (seriously, I still don't understand what the hell that software even is!)
• install the official Mist client, which is beautiful and slick, much easier to understand and can be found here: https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases

You should then be able to copy your keystore files back over - each seems to represent an account and will have a password attached. Mist will just pick them up when you start - and you'll need the password for each account when you attempt to use it.

Best of luck.

Answer 2

are you copying and pasting your password? I had this issue the other day and the password was only taken when I typed it manually.

hope this helps mule